The new barbecue restaurant from James Beard Award-winning South Carolina pitmaster Rodney Scott is expected to open sometime this week in Birmingham.

Scott, who won the James Beard Award for best chef in the Southeast in 2018, first announced plans to open a Birmingham location of his Rodney Scott’s BBQ last spring.

The restaurant, which is in the former Saigon Noodle House space at 3719 Third Ave. South in Avondale, could open possibly as early as Wednesday, Feb. 20, according to Birmingham restaurateur Nick Pihakis of the Pihakis Restaurant Group.

Rodney Scott's BBQ is part of the Pihakis Restaurant Group's portfolio of restaurants.

The staff at the Birmingham location has been in training for the past several days, according to Pihakis, and he said the restaurant will not open until he is convinced the staff is ready.

Scott, one of the South's most celebrated pitmasters, grew up in his parents Roosevelt and Ella Scott's barbecue joint, Scott's Bar-B-Que, in Hemingway, S.C., and he started working there full-time nearly 30 years ago, when he was 17. He cut and split his own firewood, and then came back and worked the barbecue pit from late at night until well in the morning.

In 2017, he partnered with the Pihakis Restaurant Group to open the first location of his own Rodney Scott's BBQ in Charleston, S.C. The new Birmingham location will be the second.

"What made me think about Birmingham is, that city is growing fast," Scott said in an interview with AL.com last year. "It is a beautiful city. The barbecue scene there has always been mentioned to me by people from Birmingham who would come eat here (in Charleston) and tell me, 'Have you ever thought about Birmingham?'

"At first, I didn't. Then, after visiting the city so many times, I thought, 'Why not?' Every time I cook there, the folks seem to enjoy it. So why not just go ahead and give Birmingham a shot?"

Scott is the first African-American to win the best Southeast chef award from the James Beard Foundation and only the second barbecue cook to win a best chef award from the foundation.

The menu at the Birmingham location of Rodney Scott's BBQ will be much the same as the one in Charleston, with slow-smoked whole hog barbecue, ribs and chicken served with Scott's vinegar-based sauce, as well as such sides as collard greens, hush puppies, coleslaw, baked beans, potato salad, and banana pudding for dessert.

“The menu basically came from my childhood,” Scott said in his earlier interview with AL.com. "My mom would cook banana pudding on Sunday. Baked beans, that was usually on a Wednesday night.

"I made this long list of things that I loved to eat and even the one or two things that I wouldn't eat, like collards," he added. "We put them on the menu anyway."